Something a lot of people forget it how many people need cheap productivity and web browsing systems. one of these quadcore xeons will still be more than adequate for basic use in windows 10, for the 2-3 years that OS is still viable, and will absolutely fly on chromeOS or linux after that. I am a firm believer that old PC hardware never has a point of uselessness or even obsolescence. Any old system will have a particular price to performance point that only it can reach, and that for someone out there is perfect. Just a matter of fixing them up, and finding that person.
There are also 775 Xeons to make it easier not having to mod the motherboard. I have a Xeon E3110 on an old HP SFF computer that i got free from work. Didn't work on most DDR2 boards unless they were server boards but DDR3 capable boards such as the HP take them even if they don't mention any Xeon support. Made a nice XP retro gaming computer out of it
So I have an old Dell Inspiron 530. I've had it since December of 2007. About 2 years ago I dug it out of my closet and decided to see how far I could upgrade it. Maxed out the RAM in it (8GB of DDR2 800MHZ lol), GTX 750TI, and put an X5470 in it. Found a site that someone had posted a custom bios for the Inspiron 530 that adds all the micro codes for the xeon X54xx family to run at their full capacity. It now runs windows 10 well and runs most apps without a problem. It struggles if you try to do more than one thing at a time though.
Currently using socket 775 Core 2 Quad Q9550, 4 gig ddr3 ram (windows says its ddr2, but it IS ddr3 lol) and GTX 550 Ti, this crappy GPU is killing performance haha, on the other hand I was literally paid money to pick up this system so who is to complain. Windows 10 itself is super smooth and responsive. I am sure that 12mb cache on the CPU helps a lot.
Good project I did it on X5460, the hard work is when you not have the microcodes and you have to hack it to add the right one in order to recognize it on the bios.
appreciate it! I def got lucky not having to deal with that headache. I have done it before but it can be annoying especially with the risk of bricking the bios.
A Xeon and the performance on games makes sense. Basically, Xeons are better built to handle set world games like GTA and Rocket League, meaning it won't have to render entire worlds like Skyrim or Fortnite. A set map makes it easier for the CPU to focus its utilization toward rendering fewer dynamic objects. I think this PC would go great on Serious Sam. If the core rates were higher, then Skyrim and Fortnite would be feasible, but I'd imagine this CPU would need to be clocked at 3GHz to make those playable (the Core2Quad Xtreme I believe was made for LGA755 - definitely recommend re-soldering the dye and using CoolLaboratories Liquid Metal Pro for paste). Have a similar gifted motherboard and CPU w/ram, and I've been playing with the idea of upgrading the CPU and keeping the Xeon as backup. Sadly, I don't think there is overclock capabilities for the gifted motherboard. From experience, if you're running a board that handles ECC ram, I've had some pretty surprising results using all ECC, but that was also converting Dell Precision boards that can quad-channel the ram. Best wishes.
Why is old hardware often so massively underrated? What you had in front of you was an overclocking board with a processor that already had plenty of potential back then, plus excellent cooling from Zalman. What it lacked was maybe 2 more GB (so 8 GB in dual-channel) and a little love. - Why it didn’t need a Xeon: 1. The CPU could have been easily pushed to 4 GHz, and maybe even a bit more. (My E8600 goes up to 4.6 GHz.) 2. A Q9550/9650 could also have been pushed beyond the 4 GHz mark, and even a 9400 ran at 3.8 GHz for me. So why risk the board or the CPU for a Xeon Mod when tinkering... and overclocking?! The Xeon can also be run near 4 GHz, but it gets too hot for my needs with its 120W TDP (C2Q only 95W, C2D only 65W!!!). As for the graphics card... with that bottleneck, the 1050 Ti not only wastes performance but actually suppresses it. Worst case, the FPS fluctuate wildly, and you get some pretty nasty drops, causing serious stuttering in the end. A GTX 750 Ti or GTX 660 would have been better. In combination, it would’ve been a great machine for playing older games. But even the tested setup would have run much better with an overclocked E8500 and a GTX 750 Ti (with 8 GB of RAM). Even some of the games you ruled out because of missing instruction sets... there are mods and workarounds for that, and quite a few still run. I have to admit though, it’s more of a machine for retro gamers. But even for tinkerers, I can still think of the Q6600 with a BSEL mod. That would run at 3 GHz. That’s one of my favorite combinations for old 775 boards: Q6600 with GTX 660. PS: Thanks to Linux with Proton, Wine Staging, DXVK, etc., even a lot of current games can run that don’t work under Windows. However, I’d tend more towards AMD for that. A HD 7870 would be a great choice. Then, for example, using FSR... you wouldn’t believe how much is still hidden in such an old gem ;) PPS: With an adapter card, you could probably even run it via M.2 or NVMe. Old Hardware is like me....Old...but not useless ;)
love the vids mab...my crohnes is kicking my butt for a few days now...damn viral infectipn in my guts...kinda stuck in bed and youtubing….thanks for the cpontent on a sick day!
I picked up a Q9400 for about $12, got a lot of the extra functions the Q6600 is missing and drops straight in, my itx board already supports DDR3, runs old games with an EVGA GTX660 really well. Nice little retro game player, just waiting for a new NVME for my main system so I can free up a drive and send it SSD instead of spinning rust.
I recently found a pc with that same motherboard in it! I ended up selling it cause they go for quite a bit on ebay, but I wish I kept it to try this xeon out
i saw a video where a guy was making a similar modification but instead he chose to cut off the plastic notches on the motherboard instead of the ones on cpu
The q9650 is just a better bin then the x5450. X5460 and e5450 are also better chips too use. The e5450 is lower wattage so its more idea for this. I remember back in the day how they where saying ddr3 was a gimic because when they increased the speed, they also increased the latency which totally defeated the purpose. There may be some validity to this because. In my opinion i think that weaker x5450 xeon combines with that mixmatch ram set account for the difference more then just the ddr3 alone. Good card to match up with this system is a gtx 660.
Is that a 790i ultra or 780i? I have 2 of the 790i ultra boards and both have factory fans on the northbridge heatsink. One is xfx, the other evga. Noisy wee things though. Im running both of mine with the qx9650's which is the fastest cpu this board supports. Holds up well with my 4gb evga gtx 680 signature cards. The evga board has socketed buos chip, and the xfx doesnt.
Interesting. I found the right hand appearing / disappearing very annoying, it didn’t work for me, I nearly stopped watching several times. I have a few Q9550 / DDR3 / LGA775 / SSDs PCs with Linux on them. If you install a NVIDIA 710 GPU then the GPU can be used with NVENC / ffmpeg to do some respectably fast h.264 encodes.
sorry about that appreciate the feed back. Good info on the 710 with the nvenc. I really wished this board would of had the ddr3. that makes a big difference.
You forgot about reprogramming the bios in windows to fully utilize the xeon, also you forgot about the fact that you need a xeon compatible motherboard, not all will recognize the xeon
I was able to run the xeon without changing the bios for windows 10. you only have to mod the bios if you want to run a xeon not supported by the board.
not sure. never considered that option. i'm sure their is some chinese company that has done it. I have seen some companies come up with adaptors for laptop cpu's.
@@DLMtechgarage could I ask are you part of any forums that does this type modification? Would love to join a group that has experience in doing this kind of mods
Something a lot of people forget it how many people need cheap productivity and web browsing systems. one of these quadcore xeons will still be more than adequate for basic use in windows 10, for the 2-3 years that OS is still viable, and will absolutely fly on chromeOS or linux after that. I am a firm believer that old PC hardware never has a point of uselessness or even obsolescence. Any old system will have a particular price to performance point that only it can reach, and that for someone out there is perfect. Just a matter of fixing them up, and finding that person.
Agreed. I sold a lot of core 2 duo when virtual learning started booming.
Cheap online office pc
There are also 775 Xeons to make it easier not having to mod the motherboard. I have a Xeon E3110 on an old HP SFF computer that i got free from work. Didn't work on most DDR2 boards unless they were server boards but DDR3 capable boards such as the HP take them even if they don't mention any Xeon support. Made a nice XP retro gaming computer out of it
Cool project :) You make all this tech experimentation accessible and do great explanations. Thanks for all the videos :)
Thanks much appreciated!!
So I have an old Dell Inspiron 530. I've had it since December of 2007. About 2 years ago I dug it out of my closet and decided to see how far I could upgrade it. Maxed out the RAM in it (8GB of DDR2 800MHZ lol), GTX 750TI, and put an X5470 in it. Found a site that someone had posted a custom bios for the Inspiron 530 that adds all the micro codes for the xeon X54xx family to run at their full capacity. It now runs windows 10 well and runs most apps without a problem. It struggles if you try to do more than one thing at a time though.
Mine has DDR3 memory, if you can find such a board cheaply it really does make a big difference.
Where can i get the custom bios?
Where can i get the custom bios?
Where can i get the custom bios?
Where can i get the custom bios?
Currently using socket 775 Core 2 Quad Q9550, 4 gig ddr3 ram (windows says its ddr2, but it IS ddr3 lol) and GTX 550 Ti, this crappy GPU is killing performance haha, on the other hand I was literally paid money to pick up this system so who is to complain. Windows 10 itself is super smooth and responsive. I am sure that 12mb cache on the CPU helps a lot.
I am unable to find q9550 but im using 9400 its also super smooth with 8gb ddr3 ram
@@dhrubjeetdatta4690 try regional marketplaces like polish Allegro
with 8 gig memory and a q6600, with a gt730, it runs skyrim LE
You should see a Q9400 with 8GB of DDR3 and a GTX660 running Crysis.
Good project I did it on X5460, the hard work is when you not have the microcodes and you have to hack it to add the right one in order to recognize it on the bios.
appreciate it! I def got lucky not having to deal with that headache. I have done it before but it can be annoying especially with the risk of bricking the bios.
A Xeon and the performance on games makes sense. Basically, Xeons are better built to handle set world games like GTA and Rocket League, meaning it won't have to render entire worlds like Skyrim or Fortnite. A set map makes it easier for the CPU to focus its utilization toward rendering fewer dynamic objects. I think this PC would go great on Serious Sam. If the core rates were higher, then Skyrim and Fortnite would be feasible, but I'd imagine this CPU would need to be clocked at 3GHz to make those playable (the Core2Quad Xtreme I believe was made for LGA755 - definitely recommend re-soldering the dye and using CoolLaboratories Liquid Metal Pro for paste). Have a similar gifted motherboard and CPU w/ram, and I've been playing with the idea of upgrading the CPU and keeping the Xeon as backup. Sadly, I don't think there is overclock capabilities for the gifted motherboard. From experience, if you're running a board that handles ECC ram, I've had some pretty surprising results using all ECC, but that was also converting Dell Precision boards that can quad-channel the ram. Best wishes.
Why is old hardware often so massively underrated? What you had in front of you was an overclocking board with a processor that already had plenty of potential back then, plus excellent cooling from Zalman. What it lacked was maybe 2 more GB (so 8 GB in dual-channel) and a little love. - Why it didn’t need a Xeon:
1. The CPU could have been easily pushed to 4 GHz, and maybe even a bit more. (My E8600 goes up to 4.6 GHz.)
2. A Q9550/9650 could also have been pushed beyond the 4 GHz mark, and even a 9400 ran at 3.8 GHz for me.
So why risk the board or the CPU for a Xeon Mod when tinkering... and overclocking?! The Xeon can also be run near 4 GHz, but it gets too hot for my needs with its 120W TDP (C2Q only 95W, C2D only 65W!!!).
As for the graphics card... with that bottleneck, the 1050 Ti not only wastes performance but actually suppresses it. Worst case, the FPS fluctuate wildly, and you get some pretty nasty drops, causing serious stuttering in the end. A GTX 750 Ti or GTX 660 would have been better. In combination, it would’ve been a great machine for playing older games. But even the tested setup would have run much better with an overclocked E8500 and a GTX 750 Ti (with 8 GB of RAM).
Even some of the games you ruled out because of missing instruction sets... there are mods and workarounds for that, and quite a few still run. I have to admit though, it’s more of a machine for retro gamers.
But even for tinkerers, I can still think of the Q6600 with a BSEL mod. That would run at 3 GHz. That’s one of my favorite combinations for old 775 boards: Q6600 with GTX 660.
PS: Thanks to Linux with Proton, Wine Staging, DXVK, etc., even a lot of current games can run that don’t work under Windows. However, I’d tend more towards AMD for that. A HD 7870 would be a great choice. Then, for example, using FSR... you wouldn’t believe how much is still hidden in such an old gem ;)
PPS: With an adapter card, you could probably even run it via M.2 or NVMe.
Old Hardware is like me....Old...but not useless ;)
love the vids mab...my crohnes is kicking my butt for a few days now...damn viral infectipn in my guts...kinda stuck in bed and youtubing….thanks for the cpontent on a sick day!
dang man hate it for you. hope you get better and glad you enjoying the content.
I picked up a Q9400 for about $12, got a lot of the extra functions the Q6600 is missing and drops straight in, my itx board already supports DDR3, runs old games with an EVGA GTX660 really well. Nice little retro game player, just waiting for a new NVME for my main system so I can free up a drive and send it SSD instead of spinning rust.
Go look for the boards that support DDR3 memory, it's what my Q6600 ITX board supports and it really does make a significant difference.
I def want to try that!
I recently found a pc with that same motherboard in it! I ended up selling it cause they go for quite a bit on ebay, but I wish I kept it to try this xeon out
I kept it and put it away in the box. The xeon mod was cool and def made a big difference. Just loved the style of the board.
@@DLMtechgarage yeah I love the massive north bridge heatsink and neon green colors! Hopefully I stumble on another one from the curb
I wish I had the spare $$$ to juice the hell out if all the random PCs I have, even if it's an excersize in futility.
...and as the star of today's video, my right hand...
That was really scary; you pull it off.
just a little nerve racking, I would be more freaking out if it was a higher end cpu lol..
i saw a video where a guy was making a similar modification but instead he chose to cut off the plastic notches on the motherboard instead of the ones on cpu
The q9650 is just a better bin then the x5450. X5460 and e5450 are also better chips too use. The e5450 is lower wattage so its more idea for this. I remember back in the day how they where saying ddr3 was a gimic because when they increased the speed, they also increased the latency which totally defeated the purpose. There may be some validity to this because. In my opinion i think that weaker x5450 xeon combines with that mixmatch ram set account for the difference more then just the ddr3 alone. Good card to match up with this system is a gtx 660.
There are 775 motherboards that don't support ≥Conroe. I have an Intel D102GGC2. I intend to grab myself a Core 2 CPU anyway for lulz.
Is that a 790i ultra or 780i? I have 2 of the 790i ultra boards and both have factory fans on the northbridge heatsink. One is xfx, the other evga. Noisy wee things though. Im running both of mine with the qx9650's which is the fastest cpu this board supports. Holds up well with my 4gb evga gtx 680 signature cards. The evga board has socketed buos chip, and the xfx doesnt.
Interesting. I found the right hand appearing / disappearing very annoying, it didn’t work for me, I nearly stopped watching several times. I have a few Q9550 / DDR3 / LGA775 / SSDs PCs with Linux on them. If you install a NVIDIA 710 GPU then the GPU can be used with NVENC / ffmpeg to do some respectably fast h.264 encodes.
sorry about that appreciate the feed back. Good info on the 710 with the nvenc. I really wished this board would of had the ddr3. that makes a big difference.
Could make a nice home server or mining rig
I know that Zalman cooler I have it in a build for sale with a i7 4790k and a GTX 970
x5470 with ddr3 really strong on 775 lga mobo
Out of curiosity what exactly is the little part that you use to mod the cpu or where can I find one
You forgot about reprogramming the bios in windows to fully utilize the xeon, also you forgot about the fact that you need a xeon compatible motherboard, not all will recognize the xeon
True. I was just focused on the board but your right! I lucked out as this board did not need a bios update.
@@DLMtechgarage well then that's another board to add to my list
Love Xeons!
they are the best bang for the buck
x5492 would of been a better choice for this mobo
Those old cases sure did have bad cable management
they are the worst!!
I built in the red phantom case and it's fine, just get better
how to run xeon with windows 10? is i had to mod my bios? i really newbie in term of bios upgrade. can u explain how?
I was able to run the xeon without changing the bios for windows 10. you only have to mod the bios if you want to run a xeon not supported by the board.
I want to upgrade my pc with 150 dollars can you due please
is there a way to do the same thing for AMD Turion 64 x2 (laptop), so it can be used on desktop? the Turion is S1G1 Socket
not sure. never considered that option. i'm sure their is some chinese company that has done it. I have seen some companies come up with adaptors for laptop cpu's.
@@DLMtechgarage could I ask are you part of any forums that does this type modification? Would love to join a group that has experience in doing this kind of mods
@@guardian7keys absolutely. Send me a link. Def apart of a few forums and love what I learn from them!
i have myself a 10 years windows 10 pc xDD (i7 2600 and GTX 680 in an old case)
gotta love them xeons !!!!!
💯
or just cut back the notches on the socket
yea but I wanted to preserve the board as is since its a cool piece.
Always grind down the cpu to add a notch never do the mobo cpus are cheaper
yup, well said!
Terrible camera focusing. hurts my eyes.
Yea go pro has no focus features. best I got until I get something better in the future.
First
thanks!
Second xd
thanks
You can but the CPUS already modded on ebay.
yea but just wanted to have the experience!!
E5450 in mine.